Australia · friends · gardening · Mount Warning · summer · Tweed Valley

Excuse Me…..Can We Come in Please?

Where Mount Warning should be.

The magpies visit my garden regularly and we have become rather friendly over the last year. This summer, the mummy and daddy magpie have brought their three babies to visit, no doubt teaching them where The Home To Come To When You Are Hungry is, as I always drop everything I’m doing when they arrive and rush outside with soggy bread for them all, which they seem to enjoy enormously.

They have me very well trained!

Just the other day, as I walked outside with hands full of garbage to go the garbage bin, one of the babies, no doubt expecting a treat, swooped down out of the trees and landed right in front of me. I had to explain, of course, that I hadn’t brought any bread with me, only the garbage, but would be back in a jiffy.

Understanding every word I said, he waited, of course.

You know you love me....

We’ve had a run of rainy days for the last three days, today being the fourth day of sog and mist. The plants in the garden are growing profusely, as are the weeds. Mount Warning has vanished out of sight.

And our magpie babies are not impressed!

Two of the babies came to my bedroom door yesterday, which leads out onto the back veranda, looking straight at me, longingly, with their cute beady eyes. I could well imagine them asking, “Excuse me, but it’s awfully wet out here. Can we please come inside for a while?”

Yep. It's still raining.

Not satisfied with sitting on a post a whole six feet away from the door, the more adventurous of the siblings came even closer to the door, sitting on the back of an outdoor chair and peering longingly at me.

I took his photo through the window, hence the blurriness you see in the photo, and then carefully and gently tied to open the door, so as not to startle him, hoping to take a photo without the window impeding the way.

Can we come in please?

The baby magpies made the sudden, joint decision that they had had enough close human contact for the day and in a flurry of feathers, off they flew.

They were back again this morning for breakfast though. 🙂

Australia · gardening · summer · Tweed Valley

It’s Red-Hot in the Garden Today!

Red-Hot Chilies

Mother Nature has been extremely kind to my garden this summer.

By February, the red chilies, in their red container, are usually withered and dried out by the extreme heat, but not this year. Milder temperatures have kept them looking good enough to eat (almost!)

Red Foliage

As I wandered mindlessly around the garden today (my favourite way to wander!) with camera in hand, red foliage jumped out at me from everywhere. I hadn’t realised before just how many red plants I have.

Red Strawberry Flowers

I even found a tiny red strawberry flower, hiding in among the foliage.

Red Flowers

Our recent deluge of rain has been a blessing to the plants, bringing out flowers by the dozens. It has been worth being almost flood-bound for two weeks, just to see the beauty the rain has helped to create.

With the humidity at only sixty-six percent today (according to Google Weather) the heat of the thirty-degree temperature of the day wasn’t too bad at all. I don’t mind hot days, minus the humidity.

Red Dianthus

Dianthus are an incredibly easy plant to grow. Even during times of neglect and extreme heat, they stay strong and constantly reward me with beautiful little flowers for most of the year.

Well, it WAS red!

Today I ventured right down the back of our property, almost as far as the back fence, looking out for Eastern Brown Snakes, which are one of the deadliest snakes in the world, and yes, we have had them in our yard! I even walked close to the old shed, as the colour red yet again caught my eye…well, this old ride-on mower used to be red. Now though, it’s seen better days.

Mower fuel, kept in a red container

Even the red container holding the mower fuel jumped out at me today. As I general rule, I don’t even notice it in the shed!

Red Centred Hibiscus

Inside the pool area we have a row of hibiscus, each plant with a different coloured flower. Last year, I was rather later than I should have been with pruning the hibiscus, although Mother Nature has also been late with providing summer heat. I really don’t think the hibiscus have been too perturbed by mine and Mother Nature’s bad timing. They are now out in flower and this beauty has two different shades of red at her centre.

Red-dy for a Cool Drink

Beads of sweat ran down the centre of my back during my mindless-garden-wander, but I enjoyed my time outside, in the heat of the middle of the day. What is the saying?…“Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”. Well, my background is English!

Black Beauty

And my wise and perfectly sane dog stayed indoors. 🙂

Footnote, added 10.10 pm ~ The “red-heat” of the day was even more intense than I had realised. The temperature today reached thirty-seven degrees celsius (or 98.6 degrees fahrenheit). And it’s still hot, hot, hot!

 

Australia · Changes · gardening · spring · Tweed Valley

Spring

Spring has sprung

“Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer.” ~ Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

In just a few days time we will be heading yet again into the summer months, my least favourite months of the year weather wise, due to the suffocating humidity we usually experience here in the sub-tropics of Australia.

Purple and blue

Yes, the truth of the matter is, I strongly dislike the heat, and that will be the end of my whinging, I promise. I mean, surely there has to be a positive aspect, or even two, to the summer months?

This summer I will be making an extra effort to look for the more favourable aspects of the hot weather. During spring I have already begun to do so, by looking at my garden through wide open eyes, taking photos of the beautiful new growth that has popped up out of seemingly nowhere, overnight at times, to produce the most beautiful colours imaginable!

Shades of purple

Over the past two months I have constantly carted my camera around the garden with me to capture the beauty, before the heat sizzles the pretty colours away.

Today’s photos show just a smattering of the colour show in my garden.

To enhance my photos I have (finally) found a program on my computer which improves the colour and also resizes the photos, reducing the pixels, therefore speeding up the loading process of the photos onto the computer page.

Okay, okay, I know; everyone knows how to do this already. I can hear the groans from here. What can I say? I’m a slow learner, although a rather chuffed blogger, having learned something new today!

gardening · gratitude · herbs · lemon · mangoes · pecan nuts · summer

Weekly Photo Challenge ~ Abundance.

Abundance

This past week has been a rather hectic one for me, with an abundance of work, mostly paper work, taking up most of my waking hours each day.

As a result I have missed out on posting anything here for quite a few days. I’ve even missed the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge for last week!

Now, where in the rules does it say a photo can’t be posted a couple of days late?… No where?… That’s what I thought!

So here I am with my photo, which represents last week’s theme ~ “abundance”.

This photo was taken last year, when our garden produced a massive abundance of extremely tasty food; tomatoes, lemons, limes, mangoes, pecan nuts, chillies, and a number of my favourite herbs, including rosemary, basil, sage, parsley and thyme.

This time last year, the planets must have aligned perfectly, giving us a bumper crop of absolutely everything we grow! The right amount of rain and just enough sunshine, with the right amount of heat beating down upon the earth.

This summer, however, Mother Nature has not been quite so kind to us. Luckily, I have my photos from last year, showing my garden in all of its lush glory with an abundance of edibles, with which to reminisce, until the perfect weather conditions return again.

And the perfect weather conditions will return. Mother Nature is kind that way. 🙂

daughter · gardening · son

And Now For the Latest News at Home Life Online…

The Holden

Glitches ~ A Thing of the Past?

It would appear that the recent glitches on my website may be a thing of the past. A change of theme may have corrected the problems I’ve been experiencing lately. Fingers crossed, touch wood and here’s hoping!

Now all I need to do is add a few more personal touches and all will be well again. 🙂

On The Home Front…

Miss Eighteen, of “just-finished-school” and “casual-job” fame, has just applied for, and received, her first ever credit card. She wanted the card for a specific purpose and has a five months interest free period.

Wanting to check out if the card worked, she purchased a $3.92 packet of chips, to share with her brother. When she arrived home, she immediately made a payment of $3.92 onto her credit card!

Her family trusts that she will continue with these responsible financial practises!

Managing Without a Car. (Photo Story)

A routine service check on my four year old Holden Commodore has revealed some unexpected problems. An engine oil leak has been discovered, preventing the car from being passed for registration, which was due yesterday.

The repairs on the car would have been completed by this morning, if Holden had sent the right parts.

The repairs would have further been completed by this afternoon, if Holden had sent all of the right parts in the second delivery!

With the help of my two eldest children, hitching a ride has not been a problem for me.

(Is the Universe trying to tell me something?)

And Cutting a Long Story Short…

This morning, I took a walk around a very familiar block, in the industrial area at South Tweed Heads, admiring shrubs planted many years ago, and still thriving, at two locations where I have had businesses located in years gone by.

Even in my workplaces, I have tended whatever garden has been available for me to tend!

My latest garden, at my latest workplace, will be given the attention it is crying out for as soon as the weather cools down just a tad.

I will reveal my new workplace soon, as soon as I’m given some photos, taken on my daughter’s camera. (Geez, that girl is slow. They were taken last September!!)

Today’s Weather.

(What kind of news would this be, if it didn’t end with the weather?!)

Google Weather tells me it is currently cloudy, 26 degrees Celsius (or 78 F) and 65% humidity. Tomorrow is predicted to reach 27 degrees and Google hasn’t decided if it will be sunny, raining or cloudy!

My home thermometer tells me it’s 29 degrees Celsius (83 F) and 63 % humidity. A glance outside the window reveals sunshine! For tomorrow, I predict the weather will be whatever I see when I look outside my window again! 😉